An ethnocracy is a type of political regime in which the state apparatus is appropriated by a dominant ethnic group (or groups) to further its interests, power and resources. Ethnocratic regimes typically display a combination of 'thin' democratic facade covering a more profound ethnic structure, in which ethnicity (or race, or religion) - and not citizenship - is the key to securing power and resources. An ethnocratic regime facilitates the ethnicization of the state by the dominant group, through the expansion of control, often through conflict with minorities and neighboring states.

A comprehensive model of the ethnocratic regime was first formulated by political and legal geographer, Professor Oren Yiftachel. In a series of articles and books articulated the regime's key principles, and its typical mechanisms of dealing with immigration, development, land, law, culture and security. Yiftachel drew on the prime example of Israel/Palestine, placed within a comparative framework of other recent ethnocracies such as Northern Ireland, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia, Croatia, Lebanon, Cyprus, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Yiftachel's work also relates to Israel as a 'settler ethnocracy' which is historically comparable to settler societies such Australia, South Africa and Canada.

Research shows that several spheres of regime control are vital for ethnocratic regimes, including the armed forces, police, land administration, immigration control and economic development. These power government instruments ensure the long-term domination of the leading ethnic groups, and the stratification of society into 'ethnoclasses', which has been exacerbated by the recent stage of capitalism, with its typical neo-liberal policies. Ethnocracies often manage to contain ethnic conflict in the short term by effective control over minorities, and by effectively using the 'thin' procedural democratic façade. However, they tend to become unstable in the long term, suffering from repeated conflict and crisis, which are resolved by either substantive democratization, partition or regime devolution into consociational arrangements. Alternatively, ethnocracies that do not resolve their internal conflict may deteriorate into periods of long-term internal strife and the institutionalization of structural discrimination or apartheid.

In ethnocratic states the government is typically representative of a particular ethnic group holding a number of posts disproportionately large to the percentage of the total population. The dominant ethnic group (or groups) represents and use them to advance the position of their particular ethnic group(s) to the detriment of others.[1][2][3][4]

Other ethnic groups are systematically discriminated against by the state and may face repression or violations of their human rights at the hands of state organs. Ethnocracy can also be a political regime which is instituted on the basis of qualified rights to citizenship, and with ethnic affiliation (defined in terms of race, descent, religion, or language) as the distinguishing principle. [5] Generally, the raison d'être of an ethnocratic government is to secure the most important instruments of state power in the hands of a specific ethnic collectivity. All other considerations concerning the distribution of power are ultimately subordinated to this basic intention.

Ethnocracies are characterized by their control system – the legal, institutional, and physical instruments of power deemed necessary to secure ethnic dominance. The degree of system discrimination will tend to vary greatly from case to case and from situation to situation. If the dominant group (whose interests the system is meant to serve and whose identity it is meant to represent) constitutes a small minority (typically 20% or less) of the population within the state territory, substantial degrees of institutionalized suppression will probably be necessary to sustain its control.

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In October 2012, Lise Morjé Howard [6] introduced the terms mono-ethnocracy and poly-ethnocracy. Mono-ethnocracy is a type of regime where one ethnic group dominates, which conforms with the traditional understanding of ethnocracy. Poly-ethnocracy is a type of regime where more than one ethnic group governs the state. Both mono- and poly-ethnocracy are types of ethnocracy. Ethnocracy is founded on the assumptions that ethnic groups are primordial, ethnicity is the basis of political identity, and citizens rarely share multiple ethnic identities.

Lise Morjé Howard [6] has labeled Belgium as both a poly-ethnocracy and a democracy. Citizens in Belgium exercise political rights found in democracies, such as voting and free speech. However, Belgian politics is increasingly defined by ethnic divisions between the Flemish and Francophone. For example, all the major political parties are formed around either a Flemish or Francophone identity. Furthermore, bilingual education has disappeared from most Francophone schools.

Oren Yiftachel has recently shown how the Israeli ethnocracy has caused a process of 'creeping apartheid', due to its colonial expansion into the Palestinian Occupied Territories, and the lack of resolution of the conflict with the internal Palestinian Arab minority. [8]

In November 2014, the Israeli cabinet approved a bill declaring Israel to be a "Jewish state." The law would grant the Israeli state the authority to strip Arab residents of civil rights if they were found to participate in or encourage the use of violence, including stone-throwing.[9] The bill was seen as controversial by some politicians due to its potential effects on Israel's Arab minority, which make up around 20 percent of the population.[10]

There is a spectrum of opinion among authors as to the classification of Latvia and Estonia, spanning from Liberal or Civic Democracy[11][12] through Ethnic democracy[13] to Ethnocracy. Will Kymlicka regards Estonia as a democracy, stressing the peculiar status of Russian-speakers, stemming from being at once partly transients, partly immigrants and partly natives.[14] British researcher Neil Melvin concludes that Estonia is moving towards a genuinely pluralist democratic society through its liberalization of citizenship and actively drawing of leaders of the Russian settler communities into the political process.[15] James Hughes, in the United Nations Development Programme's Development and Transition, contends Latvia and Estonia are cases of ‘ethnic democracy’ where the state has been captured by the titular ethnic group and then used to promote ‘nationalising’ policies and alleged discrimination against Russophone minorities.[13] (Development and Transition has also published papers disputing Hughes' contentions.) Israeli researchers Oren Yiftachel and As’ad Ghanem consider Estonia as an ethnocracy.[16][17] Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha, of the University of Haifa, disagrees with Yiftachel, contending that the ethnocratic model developed by Yiftachel does not fit the case of Latvia and Estonia; it is not a settler society as its core ethnic group is indigenous, nor did it expand territorially or have a diaspora intervening in its internal affairs as in the case of Israel for which Yiftachel originally developed his model.[18]

Not surprisingly, Lijphart argues strongly in favour of the consociational model and his categories illustrates that, on the constitutional level, state power can be distributed along two dimensions: Legal-institutional and territorial.

Along the legal-institutional dimension we can distinguish between singularism (power centralised according to membership in a specific group), pluralism (power-distribution among defined groups according to relative numerical strength), and universalism (power-distribution without any group-specific qualifications). The three main alternatives on the territorial dimension are the unitary state, "intermediate restructuring" (within one formal sovereignty), and partition (creating separate political entities). Ethnocracy indicates a specific principle of power-distribution in a society.

^Lijphart, Arend (1985). Power-sharing in South Africa. Berkeley : Institute of International Studies, University of California. ISBN0-87725-524-5.

^Soldiers and Kinsmen in Uganda: The Making of a Military Ethnocracy by Ali A. Mazrui. Author(s) of Review: Rodger Yeager The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1977), pp. 289-293. doi:10.2307/217352

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